Dialogues of the Carmelites 2: How Sister Constance Prepares for Death

In the garden, some of the religious are harvesting. Constance is sitting in a tree eating the fruit.

S. Matilda: Anxiety has not made you lose your appetite, Sister Constance. But at that rate, I’ll never fill my basket.

S. Constance: What need do we have for all these provisions? Perhaps we’ll all be dead before this fruit can spoil.

S. Matilda: And suppose we don’t die at all? I don’t have such a great desire to die, Sister Constance.

S. Constance: Oh! I don’t either! But if we put our lives in God’s hands, to decide whether or not we will die, what good is it to worry about what we will eat? We will never have a better opportunity for a bit of gluttony!

S. Matilda: Now there’s a strange way of preparing for martyrdom!

S. Constance: Oh! Pardon me, Sister Matilda. In chapel, at work, and in the great silence, I can very well prepare in another manner. This manner here is the way of recreation. Why shouldn’t both ways be good? And besides, at the end of the day, the office of martyrs is not to eat, but to be eaten.